Slivers and Shards

I am not, for
I am become the anachronism
Among actors I wear no mask
For my very flesh and bone
is a drama set against me
And every tearing fiber, every ripping seam
Is only an illusion, and I
Out of place
Reside within the wrong puzzle-box, for
Even those jumbled
Still have some place to land
Even those broken
Are pieces like unto the set, yet
I do not own in any way belonging, and so am
to the point of desire
To rip out the blood red eyes from this head
To scream and suffocate on the sweat
from this stranger’s bed
To lie among crow’s feathers and feces
and call myself an owl
So as to wearily ascend
And never return
Save by a piercing screech
and hallowed howl
And that moonlit night with its
weakening scowl
And then descend
And land among the water fowl
A dripping, drowning grave to make
Is that my only fate
Or am I to acquiesce to a doctrine of...
Of no action, no nothing, nothing but...
In a world where worth weighs on what I can do
For the good, for the them, for the me, for the you
But...
IT’S NOT MY WORLD!
This is a hopeless, hollow home, these brittle bones
The mirror mocks and so do your compliments, your opinions
STOP!
...please...leave me alone.
I don’t know who you are, and as
For me, there’s really nothing to know; this
Is really a one-way street, and something
Probably got lost in translation
‘Cause your club’s code is one I don’t know
But let me play along just one more hour
or so
And I’ll show you how much one tiny glitch (like me)
can make your whole system crash...

"The good - have always been the beginning of the end."
-Friedrich Nietzsche

ShatterProof

So you've seen sick, get set for twisted
Don't know what it's like, but I know the feeling
Facing your fears like false horizons
When the light seems so warm and bright beyond this glass ceiling

So you've seemed sad, what happened to you
Is there always a reason for the breaking
We compare all our sob stories
And lament at ill-intents in the time it is taking

So you've sewn seeds of solipsism in your eyes
Always giving glares of gleeful grimness to your only friend
Hoping someone out there saves you
Hoping someone out there believes you can be saved in the end

So you've sat silently for some time here alone
As they label you with lies you accept out of guilt
The screaming voices harmonizing with the passing moments
As you twist the knife into a wound out of which no blood was spilt

So you've secretly seduced so many hearts to hope
In a desperate effort to earn redemption on your own
But this despair within delineates a falling now familiar
So you twist and turn and never learn to burn up this anguish all alone

A Culture of Cognitive Dissonance

For years I have contemplated what it means to have a culture. Ethnically, I’ve felt somewhat out of place in the conversation, as, though my last name is German, my bio-geographical roots extend across a much larger portion of Western Europe than just the Rhineland and also some parts of Canada. In a practical sense, however, the only note I have made of my ethnic background playing a part in my cultural development was the sauerkraut served at Thanksgiving. For the most part I feel like my cultural upbringing was one based out of the moral and philosophical ideologies of my parents, the local area in which I grew up, and the societal ebb and flow of the late 20th to early 21st Century American landscape out of which I derived some basic personhood.
I use the particular word personhood because my parents’ philosophy on raising me and my sister centered around the idea that their job was not simply to raise us to be good kids but to be good adults someday. My house was always full of books and art supplies growing up, stories and imaginations very strongly encouraged. But above all else was the idea that my parents loved me, that God loved me, and that I was to love others. The golden rule, treat others as you want to be treated, was strongly encouraged, and every Sunday, we would find ourselves at the Sunday morning Church service. Christian morality as it relates to the treatment of the other, as well as a uniquely encouraging viewpoint on creative expression and individual intellectualism led to a strong ideal that God gave us a brain for a reason: to grow, to learn, to think deeply and uniquely, and, above all else, to help others. Even though there are inevitably parts of anyone’s childhood that are definitely self-centered, this was an upbringing which purposefully encouraged a selfless outlook.
Caring for the other is especially important when growing up in an area where, for the most part, strangers don’t talk too much. There’s something I learned at a young age, which, in other parts of the country, is often referred to as the New England bubble. There’s a distance that folks stay away from other folks in the South Shore, a polite ownership to one’s own business and respect for another’s that isn’t necessarily unique to this area so much as a staple of many urban/suburban communities that played itself out in a very specific way to my childhood mind. Whereas in some parts of the country, everyone knows everyone’s business and it’s a town-sized family of sorts (at least that’s the stereotype), in my experience growing up in Quincy, I found there to be specific connections, such as family friends, church folks, people with whom my parents worked, and blood family to be, in varying degrees, those with whom we shared a friendly and open connection of trust. However, people we didn’t know were strangers, not necessarily in a dangerous kind of way, but there was a distance between myself and the other, a respectful, impersonal distance. Coming back here for college, I’ve realized this is much more a lenient idea than I once thought, but it still stood to my young self as a starkly contrasting (to my inner life), though unquestioned, reality of the outside world.
What was this outside world? To me it appeared to be a world somehow synchronized with, though in great friction to, the Christian subculture in the background of my life. Until I was about twelve or thirteen and confronted by bigotedly anti-patriotic Christians my own age, I was convinced that the Christian moral structure and blatantly American nationalism were hand-in-hand bosom buddies. Flag day parades and Fourth of July fireworks rip-roared their way into Church ceremony, accompanied by the sight of American flags in the sanctuary. When finally I was confronted by the stark contrast between many of America’s policies and behaviors and the Gospel of Jesus, I had already spent pretty much all of my childhood indoctrinated, if not by the politics, by the underlying, overwhelmingly consumeristic culture that is contemporary America.
This is what first came into my head when I began thinking about my “culture”—a fast-food-fed, celebrity-centered, shopaholic society driven by the desire to fill up empty lives with the newest trend, the newest fast-paced entertainment, brain-washed by a media more concerned with rumor than truth, where leaders are expected to be liars and “broken family” seems redundant. I grew up in a culture where any intellectualism led me to cynicism, any faith led me to despair, and any question led to more and more questions. Spending Saturday mornings learning about heroism from a colorful super-powered being just too good to be true on TV and Sunday morning learning just about the same kinda thing from a pulpit, I would then have to go to school and learn all about real life, the harsh, melancholy, mediocre kind that forces you to box up your dreams and write paragraphs in cursive. For some reason this dichotomy struck me more and more as I grew, of the fantastically or morally heroic starkly contrasted with the apparent villainy of the every day suppression found in structure and institution.
It was this tension, lessons from stories and lessons from the story-killers, that taught me to walk in a strange bipedal balance. One leg walked the world of that which I was taught from the words people said and the other from the way people actually acted. Very little, if anything, was innately mine from birth; I was given (or took for myself) all things I know and am. In this certainty, I would say for all people that culture is something we gain more than anything from the tension between word and deed in those around us. The closer they are to us, the more influence this tension has. The more the synchronicity, the more we can form a symbiosis with that cultural pattern, otherwise we must deceive ourselves to the point of living as “one of them” or find a different place, group, or way. Still today, I grasp at the threads of this tension, growing through the ripping of seams and the tightening of knots, hoping and praying that the right stuff is held and the right stuff is lost. Until my strings all snap, there will be a continuous cultural influence on my life and heart, as I myself try to balance word and deed in the ebb and flow of understanding and existence.

Fading

Are you bleeding, burdened
Choked by the boxes, locked tight to keep your hurt in
From those boys who've beaten and battered you broken
So the cycle continues from words left unspoken
Running into any arms that are even halfway open
Pretending as if this is an okay way to cope and
Not thinking for a second that you could put your hope in
Something more than the shady, shattered shoreline
Of coast to coast crossings where you've been picking up cargo
Something more than the memories that haunt your mind
So much so that sleep is a commodity lost long ago
From trying to tie up your sinking ship at any port o' call
That would offer you a soft respite whether it knew you there at all
Or simply like the way your sea legs looked in that dress
All the land-lubbin' liars kept callin' you Miss Mess
'Cause with you came the storm and those tiny sea towns
Were lost to the water, but not once did you drown
On and on did you float somewhere out on the sea
Just one with the waves and the fish and the breeze
Though your hair smelled like mountains and flowers up high
And your hands were as soft as a bright, cloudless sky
Through which song birds came soaring and no rain was pouring
And all was a wonder and not a moment was boring
But with each sure swift smile, the weight of your words
"I don't know," slowly shoos every one of those birds
And the clouds they roll in for a second to see
A bit of your true self, some small speck of honesty
And in that moment, the sorrow shone through
A hidden beauty deeper than the skies deepest blue
Came radiating out like the rays of the sun
And in your moonlit eyes, I saw the desire to run
Residing right next to the desire to stay
The choice is now yours, and yours alone to make today

House

The facade presented itself plainly and elegantly before me, though the structure, in truth, seemed to face the ocean on the other side. There was a clean and yet still appropriately aged look to it, evident in the slight peeling of the white paint and the way the porch may have creaked a little when I made my way cautiously to the door. From the path, I hadn’t noticed its color as much, but here it stood before me, the gate’s face, a bright and challenging sort of red. It was an annoyingly simple design for a front door, but only so in that it still held its own presumptuous self up in a surprising display of boasting.

My eyes traced the shifting wood down to a lustrous and intricate gold-colored brass orb, peeling as well, fading out in the most lovely way. I reached out and the knob began to turn, somehow warm to the touch as if, perhaps, it hadn’t been so long since my last visit. I don’t remember closing it behind me, the door I mean, but I suppose it must have been closed at some point, securely, though there were no locks.

I felt safe there. And in this new hallway that wrapped itself warmly around me, I felt so welcome. I was home, sort of.

There was a large map that followed me as I walked toward the next room. It was not a map of any place in particular, but it was old and filled with all the places I had ever been or wished I had been. On second thought, I don’t think the map was of any real place at all.

As I walked into the living room, I noticed some photos on the wall. They were old pictures of smiling people without faces.

There was a wide window there that let in the warm sun and let it dance on the carpet where I sat, barefoot, humming a tuneless melody to myself for a while.

There was an emptiness to the bedroom as well as the fridge in the unused kitchen, but when I made it to the last room, she sat with the strangest look on her pretty face and astoundingly good posture. She was looking out the back window at the sea. There was a longing in her eyes and a nervousness to the way she clutched the arms of the unmoving rocking chair. She looked elegant, stoic, and picturesque, as if she belonged in this house more than I did. She probably does, I thought.

Then she looked up and saw me looking at her from the doorway. There was a moment of perfect shattering silence. For the first time I noticed that there was no longer any sunlight, that the light in the room had only been the moon reflecting from the window off of her pale face. A cloud passed across the moon in that forever moment when her eyes met mine and all went dark. I couldn’t see a thing, yet, as always, she saw right through me, and I could feel it like a cold breeze on a summer’s day, chilling even sun-warmed skin.

In the darkness, I took a breath and lightning flashed. In that half-second, she was standing right in front of me, looking up hauntingly, longingly. Then, with the crack of thunder and the returning darkness, she was gone. I walked over to the window, taking note of the sea’s waves rising above the cliff in their tempestuous clashing. I shut the window, but I did not stop the moving of the rocking chair. Evidence, I thought.

Everything in that house was old then. Everything was cold and fading. In the shifting light my hands before me were ghostly and translucent. I too, was fading.

I heard voices coming from the kitchen and left the room with a permanence to my steps. The ceiling light was on, and there was a crowd of people standing below in the passageway blocking my path and my sight. Their voices blurred into hushed conversation and whispers with words loud enough to hear yet too secretive and implicating to understand.

Every eye glanced and glared as I traced a shaky path toward the group. They cleared away, avoiding even the slightest touch as I walked through into the kitchen, which now seemed much smaller than before.

By the counter she stood, head down, sea-salt storm air gliding through the curtains behind her and dancing with her hair as it fell across her face. The boisterous whispering behind me hushed itself. She looked up just a little.

My breath caught. How I hadn’t noticed it before, I did not know. She was, somehow similar in appearance to almost every attractive girl I had ever met, yet so much more so and completely, completely different. Utterly unlike any other girl I had ever known, she was more real than anything in the house, than the house, than anything. My heart was tied inexplicably to hers, and there came over its beating the strangest and wildest enchantment. She was the most astonishingly beautiful girl I had ever seen, and she was crying her eyes out. In between choking gasps, her soft voice ripped holes through my heart.

“How could you?” she pleaded with a voice like crimson glass, “Why did you let me believe that you loved me?”

I didn’t know what to say or what was happening, but she continued.

“You led me on and then just let me down. In big and small ways you’ve broken my heart over and over a thousand times, taking it from me when it wasn’t yours to have, stealing the innocence of my heart and soul with your jokes and games and teasing and compliments and...and promises. You’ve shattered me, made me an object to use or a prize to win. Then, then you get bored with me when something better or prettier comes along, and since you never had any plans of committing to a person’s trust, you run after the new prize. ‘Cause you can’t trust at all, can you? You were too scared.” She gasped, “We were both scared, okay? But this...why...just why?”

I had no idea what to say. I wanted to say something, to do something, to apologize, to hold her and wipe away her tears, to do...something, anything. I didn’t. I couldn’t. No, I wouldn’t. I was stuck in place, immobile in my thoughts. I heard the group behind me renew their whispering, hateful gossip burning up the back of my neck. I remember I had recognized them from the pictures in the living room, old friends, their faces now filled in, though no longer smiling.

She wiped her eyes and took a sip of water from a glass on the counter. When she removed her lips from the glass, there was blood on the rim. I took a step toward her, but a hand grabbed my shoulder and stopped me. She walked out the back door, quiet as a phantom. Agony met me as my jailers held me back. I watched her, pixelated through the screen door. She walked like a shadow, tangled up in the curtains of rain. Far off and yet only a few footsteps away she was, and ever retreating.

I could see the waves crashing across the cliff-face, the breakers rising higher than her head as she approached the edge. I shoved off the hand on my shoulder and ran to the door, flinging it open and rushing after her, my hand outstretched in desperation. My foot slipped in the mud, and I crashed landed at full speed, head on into the ground. Quickly, I pushed myself up, ran my arm across my mud-covered face and cried out to her. “HEY!” My voice was weak, broken, and alien.

She didn’t even turn around. She just kept walking, and then suddenly dropped right off the edge of the cliff. Behind me I could almost feel the flames as, even in the pouring rain, that bloody house of my burned swiftly to the ground, leaving me to choke on mud and ashes.

Black and Blue

PART 1- Blue

Foresight forms a folly
Thought I could prevent it
But fate is a fire
That burns so presumptuously
And I count the sharp edges
Of this splintered wheel

Forsaking the safety
Of sure ground
To try my best
Which isn't a best
Of anything
But it's something

The right
The good
I tried to do
By you, for you
And failed, of course
I've failed you
Haven't I?
Admit it...

But you say,
"Nothing's changed."
Another lie, really?
Really?

Days change in moments
Faces change in thoughts
But this is timeless
And you are faceless
(And I feel thoughtless)
But I've been thinking

My dreams shape you
And you shape my dreams
Till waking is a lie
And so am I
From further off
We fight for such a folly
And speak not
(Good)bye...

PART 2- Black

This dark possession
A blurred, shadowed perspective

Perfect, plated armor
Scaled like a snake
Who slips in and out
Beneath cool rocks
Away from the piercing, noonday sun
Then warms herself
When her back has grown too cold
Flicking tongue scenting the wind

Tiny, winding pathways
Through the golden, crisping sand
Each grain resounding
A tiny world

Ageless memory
The echos of thoughts
Each a sliver of a still-beating heart
Held within your skeleton cage

The carnage corpse
The vulture's carrion

Yet still the heart beats

Felt beneath bare, blistered toes
Of nomadic themes
Incarnate in winding fabric
Face hidden by the folds
Of neutral colors, camouflaged and coarse

Diverting for an instant of thirst
By an oasis once familiar
To your soft steps

And still your sun-bleached hand falls limp
And fingers wander in familiarity with the inch-high waves
Even now, so as he cups his calloused hands
To drink, not sensing the poison

A swift respite
To become himself a skeleton cage
For his still beating heart

Part 3- And...

we close
our eyes
opportunities
are lies
benefit
the bigshots
on top
but don't stop
the fallout
it's not...
...possible
...potential
...practical
...pliable
...passable
...palatable
...presentable

But it is...
...perishable...
Ain't it?

Than Moonlight

there's the door
you showed me
with your words
there it is
and here i am
waiting
for you
to say you're
only kidding
to say you're
gonna be okay
to you're
fine with me
here
and not
without me
but the
cycle continues
and
never stops
they say
they talk
too much
and i don't like them
but they are
after all
your best friends
and i was just
your closest
do you think
that perhaps
i got
too close?
do you think
just perhaps
i cared
too much?
do you think
just perhaps
you'll be fine
without me?
do you think
i've thought of everything?
'cause
i haven't
no
i haven't
got a clue
and all i would give
just to let you know
how much i'd give
for you
is cut
by your chance
to sever the ties
and be free
from guys
like him
like him
like him
like me
and that
is much more
important
than moonlight

Pretend

Let's pretend I didn't say a word
Over and over again you try to avoid this attraction
Let's pretend like we're not pretending
Over and over again you try to delay this distraction

Cycle in and out of the resonating sound
The chimes of insufficiency are still what lies around
And sing every note as you wait by the cold air
Big doors won't close as the windows are bolted
Tell me I'm the only one you've been waiting for
And I'll tell you that's a lie and you know it

Break down these walls if you want to
But I won't force you, I won't try to make you do
All of those things you know you ought to
But you can't hide the truth, you're much smarter than they pretend

this is not romance so much as a bad film

i'm a fake smile and you're showing your teeth
i'm resting my eyes while your eyes roll
i'm bleeding here and you're breaking my every bone
but at least i know that i'm not alone

Feel This Falling

Hands in his pockets
Makes his way down Hancock street
The cars race past
The shifting shadows shooting fast past his shuffling feet
Feels more alone than he has in a while tonight
But he still goes back to that place where it’s not right

So much left to say
It’s all been said before
Too many empty words
And still he could do much more
He’s heard it all and still felt so alone
But walls don’t fall down on their own

In a quiet affair with tragedy
But sometimes you can see the scars
When he smiles there’s a weight there
He likes the feel of your hand by his heart
But even with your body so close to his
There’s a distance, a disconnect, and so much amiss

It’s not about the feelings
And it’s not about the truth
If facts could make us human
Then books would live lives for you
And they’d do better than he is, by the way it looks
‘Cause only monsters burn books

...shove...

Could I be the one to cut the ropes
Of the sandbags so that your balloon can float
Higher without the burden of weight
The pain that you carry, a lift to create

Could I be the ear that hears your thought
The secret thought they thought was not
When all you've got has turned to rust
In the rain of days spent without trust

Could I be the dry ground that catches each tear
And builds until the water clear
Has formed a lake and rivers and streams
Down which to float impassioned dreams

Could I be the boat to sails you to shore
From shore to shore and just one more
Till one day you find where you belong
And leave me on the beach and just go on

Could I be the one way street, the intersection
Could I be the bittersweet of intervention
Could you see the me I try to portray
Instead of this me you say you cannot hate

Could I be the one who's in control
Instead of the one who's lost his hold
Instead of the one who wants it to be just you
When you ask instead that I try now to trust you

Could I be? I don't know...
Will you let me or just let me go?

Rubber Cement

Puppets? Did we become so willingly
Hang our heads and ourselves attach these strings
Did we hollow out our spines
'Cause I can almost feel the hand behind this mouth of mine
These words are not my own
And neither are these new and strangely jointed bones

With all you’ve lost in the midst of this
Wonder how they all act like it’s victimless
The bodies pile high in the corners of your mind
Ensnared, enraptured by the serpent’s kiss
If they dusted this room for fingerprints
Can you tell me now, how many would they find?

Did you assume that they couldn’t lie
With those shaking hands and adulterous eyes
Till the cycle repeats and you’re the one left holding the gun
Now you talk as if there’s no one left to trust
Your castle crumbling down into the dust
Where you try to hide when there's nowhere left to run

You have everything, or at least that’s the way it seems
Chasing singularly after a brokenhearted dream
Even with everything, you still haven’t found just what you mean
When you say you’re looking for something more
‘Cause your mind is a maze that keeps on changing
And your heart is a crime scene behind a closed door

So put on your show
They'll never know
That it's not really you
Who pulls the strings
Who does a thing
All those pretty, empty things you do

So put on your mask
And we’ll all forget to ask
What’s really going on
Do you remember what it’s like to feel
When your real self’s been concealed
And calloused from wearin’ that armor for so long

Meteor Shower

Another night
cold, waking alone
far from his bed
sleepwalking
now woken
to the soft grass
beneath his head
from where he tread
to where he lay
outside the town of Domus
just before the break of day

a soft breeze
cooling the summer air
shaking the shaded leaves
as his eyes flutter open
young and disbelieving
jaded yet still hoping
stare up at stars and moon through trees
a calming, complacent, cold unease
as the air begins to shake
outside the town of Domus
just before the break of day

did he sleepwalk
or did he run
just wanting to be not there
where walls and regulations
fights and frivolous duties
school and home and work
and friends who only pretend to care
so did his dreams lead him to the open air
feeling his brain begin to bend and sway
outside the town of Domus
just before the break of day

and there upon that hilltop
as he staggers to the edge
by an ancient tree that casts shadows by the moon
as clouds swim lazily across a sky
a sky now growing fierce
tiny specks of red approaching fast
a swift descent, such distance to fall
alien flames, the invading harbingers of doom
as he begins to contemplate returning to his empty room
and looks up for a second before his first step is made
outside the town of Domus
just before the break of day

obsidian, smoothed by the friction of their flight
shadow metal crashing, colliding through the sky
a collision course with the last free land of the last continent on Earth
their origin unknown, soon eyes will wake to their falling
surely he can't be the only one awake
surely he is not the only one to escape this inevitability
though such whispers were spoken, had been spoken from his birth
words of prophecy and curses, in which he'd placed little worth
till now, when he watches helpless as his home is destroyed in flame
outside the town of Domus
just before the break of day

Painting the Roses Red

forget to feel
you know you wanna
just forget all about it
you used to believe
you could be somebody
but lately you doubt it

is anything real
you know you've gotta
find a way around it
you used to believe
there was something out there
but you never found it

try hard to steal
you know all the ways away
except from how much you're hurtin'
you used to believe
you could be such a blessing
but now you feel like such a burden

it's a bad deal
you sigh, just shakin' your head
givin' up like you had already known it
you used to believe
you didn't have to do this alone
but were never really shown it

another broken seal
i'll do whatever it takes to save you
though i know i'm no kind of savior
you used to believe
that you hid the scars so well
but i've been watchin' your behavior

like a ship without a keel
what holds you together is the mystery
as you leave clue after clue to your brokenness
you used to believe
that you were completely irreparable
but together, i think we can fix whatever's broken it

Stretch the Tape

I tried to not buy into the alibis you hide on a shelf
Up high, but lately I’ve been wishing I was somebody else
‘Cause I have no idea whatsoever to do
I’m just tryin’ to reach you

I lied when I said I was fine anytime I was asked this lately
But I’ve been wanting to cry and to hide from all those that hate me
‘Cause I have no idea whatsoever to do
I’m just tryin’ to reach you

I died a little bit more inside than I’ve ever really tried or planned
Colliding with a sky that reminds me of the time I held your hand
‘Cause I have no idea whatsoever to do
I’m just tryin’ to reach you

So why is this the lie we perpetuate and divide by each time we speak
As I’m blind and you’re alright and tonight was not a sight seeming to be so bleak
‘Cause I have no idea whatsoever to do
I’m just tryin’ to reach you
J-just tryin’ to r-r-reach you

The Facts are a Misrepresentation of the Truth

The rain drips in spirals
Slips in sinkholes
Mud, mixed with blood
Blinds our burning eyes
The slow decay
The bricks we've laid
To fix the bridges we've burned
And let the water flow under
Like some lost lesson learned
But never understood
So I'll flip up my hood
And walk off into the dark
Always your closest enemy
Whatever did you want with me and my half-human heart?

Cut the cords to watch them fall
From heights of hope
Sparks, the wires, setting fires
On statue faces in perfect places
Lost like a home gone south
And a princess in a high tower
Made of shining ice
Always reflecting back my own faults and dreams
In her gilded eyes
The glitter of ancient parades still infusing the dust
The helium hallucinogens still such a lift
But there's no escape from the consumer claws
A class of their own, these little voices say

Are these the scrapers?
Is this the snow?
A winter scape
Within which we wallow the whiles
Under a burning sun
Foreshadowing with its noonday light
Of the shifting shades
And your hand in mind
An ashy taste in my mouth
The saccharine and quinine
A bittersweet mirage of Cheshire shape

Happy unbirthday to the raven at her desk
The gold within her hairline, the clock within her chest
Beating just off-time with my own
So close, too close, not close enough
And back again, surrounded and alone
Your closest enemy, I never wanted to be
Whatever did you want with me?

Autumn

Looks like you’re moving on
Got good and goin’ gone
And though it’s been so long
Thought we were goin’ strong
And though it’s been a while
Just one smile and the right turns wrong
The wrong melody to the same old song

And it looks like you’re passing through
What ever happened to you
To lead you back to this place you didn’t want to
What will you ever do
To lead along with lines
Like everything is fine, but we both know the truth
A few new clues but the same old proof

Maybe it’s time

We took a hint from the leaves that fall
And find our own reason
To turn, to turn
A cold shoulder to the fire that
Could burn, could burn
Our lives away

But i’ll still be around for a season
Although... even the seasons change

Looks like you’ve figured out
That we’re both filled with doubts
And contradictions now
About just when or if or how
This could ever be right
And it just might have if everything hadn’t fallen down
Into the places it has with a much more certain sound
Don’t doubt that it still hurts to see you around

Maybe i’m blind
But you’ve led me into the darkest pathways
Holding my hand the whole time
In spite, in spite
Of everything you said you knew
Was right, was right
You would still say
That it was so nice to have this for a season
And you’d forsake all else for more than a season
That it’s not wrong yet, ‘cause it’s only a season
But you know... even the seasons change

And fire burns much brighter
But my heart is growing lighter
This wasn't meant to spite her
I wish I could still save her
I'm not a boy anymore, I am a man, now maybe
But still I am no kind of savior

So as the leaves fall
Let your burdens to
Who knows if this is the last song
I'll write for you

A Day Away (Holiday in my Head)

Born with concrete wings clipped,
Taught only the language of leaving,
Is there anything left to hold, I wonder, and
Whose air am I breathing?

Sometimes I want to burn things just to feel the fire
And they say it’s a phase the way the shadows fall
Take the pills and we’ll pretend we listen
Your dreams are too obscene to be believed, just dismiss them

Hello, I’m still alive
And so unsatisfied
There’s a brokenness, I know you know
We love, we laugh, we live a lie
And act like we’re alright
We surely can’t stay, but there’s no good way to go

Sometimes I wonder if we, ourselves, are the antithesis
But sometimes I play by the rules I’ve been given
Read the script and forget that its just this:
Your politics are counterfeit and I worry about what I’ve missed

Goodbye, I’m still a lie
And so dissatisfied
There’s a callousness here on my own
We beg, we borrow, we bid, we bite
And act just like we might
Play for another day, but I’m nowhere near okay alone

The swirling lights, the sounds and sights
All around tonight, distractions we can’t fight
Entertain us till we bleed you profit
You are the king we’ve appointed
The idol we’ve daily anointed
The only despot we’ve got, and we won’t stop it

Well, good try
Could I be satisfied
With a world more real, or is that too bold
We hide, we hate, we hold on tight
A good sense of wrong and right
In burning plain sensibility that still leaves me cold

Hello, goodbye
I am a possum on the side of the road
And I’m not playing anymore

I Write Stupid Poems (For You?)

I write stupid poems
For stupid reasons
Hardly
Poetic (?)
I don't even
Write
I bleed
In spurts of thought
Obsessive
Derivative, I think
Too much
Organize strangely
Poorly, pathetically
Unorganized
Blips and clips
Blurbs of fallout
Burning sparks
Of emotional feces
Annoying, uncomfortable
Yet somehow still
Light
Enough by which
To see
Something
With those shining eyes
That blind me
Till I have
No idea what
To do
But write stupid poems

Literacy

Don't tell me
Haunting words that go unspoken
Don't sell me
Placebo curse for hearts so broken

These secret glances take my breath till I feel blind
So I'll steel my mind to think of a way to redefine
The lines I've drawn between your hands and mine
Till we're entangled in a net that chokes us both
From sea to land on this fiery fishing boat

The roots run deep
Metallic threads in spirals down into the sea
Down in the dark where the dead things rise
But hope is a harvest, right?

I wish I could save you
Honestly, it's kind of all I think about
And then I feel like a penny
Unlucky side up
On the floor behind a desk
You won't find me
And even if you did
I'm not worth much anymore

...................

Key
Door
It's
Yours
Get
Out
Get
Away
I'll
Be
Waiting
On
The
Other
Side

Belligerant

Their words have teeth
Every bit as sharp as I remember
When we sat there in an aging room
And he told me about loathing

Every one of my closest friends
Handing me a card that says
Written in the plainest script,
"I utterly despise you."

These sort of things add up, y'know
And I recognize the equation
You've been playing around with a mathematics
Like the six o' clock news, unbalanced but fair

So I hide in a simple sort of state
And regret my every move
I don't want to be here anymore
But you keep on pulling me back

Where their teeth have words
With me and my walking shoes
Sidewalks to seraphim
Miles in another misery

But irony is patriotic
For the kids dressed in drag
You hold a banner of knives run through my heart
And I wave a white flag

Broken Symbols

There is not enough weight to this
These murderous weaknesses you praise so highly
As if I am some authority in these symbols made meaningless
And that one small gravity, such a short term failing
To express any amount of the incarcerating rapture
That binds my feet, though my knees shake,
To this very spot, far enough for modesty sake
Yet close enough to smell your hair
So don't praise my words, pretend they show you I care
And then dare to admit that in fact they're all empty
You say you know that I do as if it's something foreseen
Well, how so

For I would give so much tonight to just understand
A bit of your mind, to just know that you're mine
To hold you under starlight in your truer state
With a simple listening gaze as you explain
A new twist to your ever-story
To show you the care I've tried to express
With these broken symbols of the uttermost excess

Believe what you will and want what you may
I cannot overtake and cannot explain
In words or in pictures or signs of affection
The depth to which I've fallen and not risen up again
And that I never will, I know you won't trust
I can see in your motions that the world's been unjust

So I'll sit here soaking in the silence between every syllable
Sit here seeking your solace in a way that's indivisible
From your real self, to look deeper and know more
To show you that I'm not as selfish as my mistakes illustrate

Here, then, is the battle between what I know and what I say
As we pretend this is imperfect, as we pretend I'm unafraid
As we insist that this is this and that is that
And we don't talk in lucid dreams about some delusional fact

Whether you care or not
I'm here
And I hope that I can show you
You've had enough disappointments
As it is

Smite in Spite, the Light just Might, so Why Fight

Walkin' down a familiar stairway
Bigger problems on my mind than some bad hair day
Smaller words do little to remedy
Flash a smile, the sweet reminder as your sweet lips lose
That there's something more going on than I can see
But around the corner comes reality a bit more true
But does he see you like I do

If this is wounded, I'm an infection
If this is bitten, I'm a venom fit for killing
If this is lost, then I'm misdirection
If you're not smitten yet, just wait, you will be

Wonder what happened to the happy girl
Wonder what happened to the subtle curl
At the edges of her secret-keeping mouth
Hidden tears from your fortress bereft and breaking through
More than you can handle to honestly speak out
As the shadow creeps back, terribly, tightly, tenderly holding you
But does he see you like I do

If this is broken, I could be a sling
If this is the fall, things might be getting colder
If this is distance, I cry for the closing
I see the real you somewhere and wish I could hold her

Sitting here in a room called alone
There is no solace for your questions, I know
So let's not pretend this is something it's not
'Cause I have no idea and you're not exactly offering up clues
Small thanks for a token, though I'd give you all I've got
Just to know you're safe and happy and free to honestly just be you
But does he see you like I do
If he does (though I don't think he does)
But if he does, than do I really need to

Her Hands Talk When Her Lungs are Busy Breathing

The hollow strand
Each passing thought
Of what could be
Yet now is not

And of what was
You want to talk
What happened when
We took a walk

And lost our way
Somewhere beside
In unknown paths
With wandered stride

The ripping wind
Cold as your touch
Here to begin
And end too much

Of useless hopes
Folly wishes fair
Who sits with me
When you're not there

And you're not there
So don't presume
You can be both
There is no room

What do you want
You were his first
So tell me now
Which one is worse

To run away
And live alone
Or stay in place
Or be your own

Would you love me
If I asked you to
Or would that be
The worst ever possible thing to do?

Soliptitude

His mouth was tied with string, shut against all songs
Honesty only in glances, by chance some would follow
The deep growls of a soul clenching...unclenching...tightly wound
The shifting friction of lidless eyes on a carpet of sky-sweat-stained grey fog
Overhearing whispers of pointless inconsistencies
Wondering at a contradiction who lately takes on the form of a sad smile
And the brightest most pointed glimpses of
Some sort of intoxicating rhythm
Indistinguishable from that of two hearts slowly aligning
Moment by moment, the shattered scraping of glass
As the walls, built quite quickly with practice, shift smoothly down as ice in Spring
More than melting, molding themselves into a metaphysical metamorphosis
Of time and space and the shadowed curve of a hint of her face
And an utter disassembling of reason
An intolerantly bittersweet kind of treasonous serendipity
The weight of claws at the utmost edges of his mind
Every thought convoluted by sensation and pregnant pauses
Itching enticements of callous disregard for the simple and irrefutable fact
That this is killing the poor man
And yet the drill stays on, a siren song just before his ear
Right there at his temple, right there where he feels
Then in waking, he almost misses the lucidity of it all
As "real life" is only a metaphor for cement, manure, and acid rain
Secondhand smoke to a simple dream of finding her hand in his
And he would dare to here cry out "Alas! Alas!"
But as I stated, his lips are otherwise occupied
Being tied up with string and all
Y'know...these things happen
And the clock tocks twice for every tick

Sinking

In my little boat I set sail for a safer shore
And far off I saw a separate storm
My boat, Betrayal named,
Is emptying me out
Though filling to the brim within
With my shame and countless doubts

I look down at the oar in my hand
And curse its cutting
The waves that rip and slip
Up beyond the edges of my tiny ship
My sinking sail-less vessel afloat
As bottom-less dreams drive ahead my battered boat

Collapsable, I feel collapsable
As I watch the sunrise through reddish skies
And contemplate the brand new day ahead
Reckless thoughts of holy escapes sinking in and out of my head
And to my foolish and fleeting surprise
Looks like I’ve run out of supplies

Within weeks or days or hours, who knows
A surreptitiously silent storm grows
And whips its wildish waves aglow
In moonlight pale till clouds are shown
Charging as bulls across in sheets
Of blackest night till east, west meets
And I am alone in the sinking and sputtering
Boat blown far from home, and my cold lips muttering,

“I miss that shore more than I miss the air”
As I break at the bottom but don’t find you there
Sick bubbles of blood rise from the edges of my mouth
I am chained to my sunken ship and my last word works out
A glimpsing apology to the land I had left
As I wipe one last tear and take one last breath

And as my drifting eyes close amidst undersea rhythms
A light pierces dimly and a soft smile lullabies this new sleep

..!

my prayers fly out into the empty space
for you my friend, my home
whispered words of wonder and supplication
before a hauntingly familiar, welcome throne
hoping that somehow you see
you never were and never are alone

and though i had to walk away
please listen when my words are too weak to say
i will always be here
even when the way’s unclear
even when the burden won’t be shed without the tears
just let it fall

Trust

We've had these pieces in a box somewhere for awhile
Kept silent by a layer of soft cotton
Locked away with a key long ago lost to time and mishandling

But if we could get at these pieces
Hold them once again in our hands
Would they really glisten as they did then?

Would the polished shine still reflect your awestruck eyes
The way it did when we first found them
Unbroken, not pieces but a whole

Though for now, I suppose,
We can pretend they are the same
For though they are locked away in pieces

In a different box, they are whole
Held between our clasped hands
A perfection within a perfection

The Coast

Wondering at the way things fall
You walk alone in the rain just to stare at the sea
A numbing, twisting sort of empty calls
From the darkening waves to you and your lost grip on reality

And as the salt meets the shore
Again and again, you're just piecing together the shell fragments
A home where you used to hide
I wish I was the ocean breeze so I could wrap you up so tight tonight

What spiraling stars above show themselves now through the clouds
To light the unsure path you walk out to the edge of the pier
Crashing sounds and closing eyes, a mist and a subtle shroud
Reminiscent of the night you took my hand without a single thought of fear

And as the salt met the shore
Again and again, my words faltering to ease your troubled heart
A house with doors and windows broken wide
I wished I was the ocean breeze so I could wrap you up so tight that night

But what falls sometimes the tides forget
Or crash upon the rocks that wait so mercilessly
And I was yours as in a dream of a moment
A tracing line of footprints washed clean from the sand
And now what's lost is hardly found in sequence
These secrets of the sea and an emptier feeling in my left hand

And as the salt meets the shore
Again and again, I'll keep promises I've made to one I've injured
An abandoned building slowly burning up from the inside
Still wish, though, I was the ocean breeze so I could wrap you up so tight tonight

Retrace

so i'm not too sure how to interpret your
ways lately
seems like you're somewhat ashamed of me
but i mean who wouldn't be
i'm your greatest mistake, but i was your closest friend
apparently
i'm not angry, just wondering
what it would take for this not to end in tragedy?

here, say the words on this blank piece of paper
you don't even have to stay awake
we'll do all the talking. just open up and smile
and we'll tell you all the right words to say

so much from mute mouths
so much subtle talk of wishes and would be's
what if's and could be's or could've beens
what would've been is naught again
i think, "not again" and walk right out to fall right in
to the same old traps and traces
tryin' to catch up to old habits and paces
and lose track by looking back
but can't, 'cause my neck's become sore by it

life ain't always black and white
sometimes it beats you black and blue
just don't grey up my silver lining with you and your half-truths
you look very small from this distance
and i'm just the invisible elephant in the room

but feelings and meaning don't stop in this silence
they can take away the sidelines but that just spreads the violence
inside a heart cemented round
can't keep the radiation down
'cause you've infected me inside and out
and every glimpse of you is just more poison
and every glimpse of you is what they've hid these joys in

so i'll keep on pretending i'm okay with this great distance
no hate, no hard feelings, and for now no real resistance
just you a hundred miles away on the other side of a wall of holes
and me somewhere else, somewhere out, somewhere wishing to console
you